by Kieran Scott
Together, Zadie and I struggled down the hall and around the corner, somehow managing the girl’s dead weight between us. At the door of the band room, I stood on my toes to peek through the high square window. Empty. I yanked open the door, and Zadie and the girl tripped inside.
“Here.”
I opened the heavy door to the first soundproof rehearsal room and flicked the light switch. The old fluorescent fixture blinked to life with a hum. Pushed up against one wall was an ancient leather couch stacked with boxes of weathered sheet music, one broken snare drum, and a teetering pile of programs from last year’s graduation. I leaned the puker against the door.
“Can you clear the couch?” I asked Zadie.
She jumped right to work and shoved everything into the far corner, next to the broken-down piano with the random missing keys.
“You can sleep it off here,” I told the puker. “My friends do it all the time.”
“Thank you.”
She took two blind steps forward, fell face-first onto the couch, and passed out, her hair trailing over her shoulder and down to the floor. For the first time I really looked over her outfit—a long white summer dress that was practically see-through over a pair of baggy jeans, and brand-new cheerleading sneakers with fuzzy white socks. Plus the red baseball cap. Where the hell had this girl come from? Mars? The Amazon? Victoria’s Secret? Although, if she’d come from there she’d probably be wearing a bra.
“I’ll come back to check on you later,” I promised. Not that she could hear me. There was a band jacket on a hook near the door, and I tore it down and tossed it over her, then snuck quietly out. Zadie waited for me in the open area of the band room.
“Thank you,” I told her.
“No problem,” she said, bouncing on her toes, jittery. “Is she gonna be okay?”
I lifted my shoulders. “I hope so. I don’t even know her name.”
“Well, I guess I should get to homeroom,” Zadie said. She took a step, then hesitated. “Are you going to the library again today?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if you do, I’ll be there. I’m there pretty much every day,” she said. “We can sit together. If you want.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
Zadie grinned and traipsed out into the hallway. Someone grabbed the door before it could close and came inside. It was Charlie. He was wearing a white T-shirt with black sleeves and the logo of a band I’d never heard of on the front. His drumsticks were gripped in one hand. My pulse started pounding at the very sight of him.
“Hey!” he said. “What’re you doing here?”
He adjusted the one backpack strap he had slung over his shoulder. I didn’t want to tattle on the puker, but maybe he’d know what to do.
“I’ll tell you if you swear you won’t tell anyone.”
“Ooh. Intrigue.” Charlie rolled the drumsticks between his palms. I smirked.
“C’mere.”
Opening the door to the rehearsal room a crack, I let him peek inside. The puker let out a huge snore and rolled over, her arm flung over the side of the couch.
“True?” he whispered. “What the hell?”
“You know her?” I asked, closing the door.
“Yeah, I . . . well . . . I guess she’s a friend.”
His phone beeped. He tugged it out of his back pocket, looked at the screen, and groaned.
“Or was,” he added.
“She threw up in the bathroom.”
“Ugh, really?” Charlie said. “Should we get the nurse?”
“I don’t know. I think she’s hungover.” We heard a groan from inside. “Actually, I think she may still be drunk.”
Charlie’s eyebrows shot up so far I couldn’t see them under his thick bangs. “Seriously? Whoa. Okay. That might explain a lot.”
His phone beeped again. This time he didn’t look at it. Instead he clenched his teeth and rolled his eyes to the sky.
“A lot.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Forget it. I’ll figure it out.” There was a long pause, with him staring at me and me trying not to blush.
“What?” I asked finally.
“Nothing, it’s just . . . it was really nice of you to take care of her like that.”
My heart panged. He had this adorable dimple right next to the right side of his mouth and I suddenly, irrationally, wanted to lean in and kiss it. I actually imagined myself doing it. Imagined how his skin would feel beneath my lips. Warm and soft and sweet. I blushed, severely, and looked away.
“Please. I couldn’t leave her in a pile of her own puke,” I said. “Anyone would have done the same.”
He shook his head at me, dubious. “Not really.”
He was right, of course. Raine, Lana, and Gen hadn’t stayed around to help. Only Zadie had. My blush deepened. “Thanks.”
Then the bell rang. Neither one of us moved. I could see the logo on his T-shirt moving up and down with the rhythm of his breath.
“We’d better go,” Charlie said finally.
“Yeah,” I replied. “We’d better.”
He held the door open for me, and I strode off toward my first class. It wasn’t until I got there that I realized I hadn’t looked at my feet once the whole way.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Charlie
There were three stacks of books on Mrs. Roberge’s desk. Twenty-one worn copies of Great Expectations. Guess we were about to get our first assignment. Great. Not that I minded reading, but I hated overanalyzing it. Overanalyzing it meant not enjoying it.
I sighed as I sat down at the same desk I’d taken yesterday, glancing over at the couple of other kids who were already there. Stacey was in this class, and I was dreading seeing her. I’d managed to avoid her during lunch by going to the band room to practice. True had still been in there, snoring so loudly I swear I could hear her over the drums. I hadn’t woken her, but I was surprised Mr. Roon hadn’t heard her.
The door opened and I flinched, but it wasn’t Stacey. It was Katrina. The room instantly got ten degrees hotter. She’d changed her hair since that morning, tying it back on the sides, and she looked beautiful. She glanced around uncertainly, twisting some fringe on her scarf around her finger as she edged into the room. I couldn’t tear my eyes off her. She was obviously nervous, and it made me want to go over to her and take her hand. But I couldn’t. Because she had a boyfriend. And I had . . . Stacey.
Finally Katrina saw me. And she smiled. And I thought I was going to die.
“You’re in this class now?” I asked.
“Yeah. You too?”
I nodded and glanced at the next desk. “Wanna sit?”
Her expression was priceless. Like I’d just offered her the last slice of pizza on earth. “Sure.”
She walked over, ducking her head in that perfect way of hers, and slid into the chair next to mine. The whole left side of my body felt warm.
“Do you have econ next?” she asked as she hung her bag on the back of her chair.
“Yeah. You too?”
She nodded and bit her bottom lip. “Yep.”
God. Someone was watching over me right now. Then the door opened and slammed.
“Charlie! Come sit by me!”
Stacey. She walked right over and stood between me and Katrina with a huge smile. Pretty much murdered the warmth. Her friend, a tall, solid-looking girl with short blond hair, did a double take when she saw Katrina, then smiled and waved. Katrina smiled back shyly.
“I’m good here,” I told Stacey.
“Please. People who sit in the front row do ninety percent better in class. It’s a proven fact.” She grabbed my wrist and pulled. “Come on.”
“Really. I’m good,” I told her, trying to sound like my dad. Like I was serious and wasn’t going to budge. Instead I sounded mean. Stacey’s face fell. A few people around us stared. I felt like such an asshole I actually almost moved where she wanted me to, but pride or Katri
na or something kept me frozen in place.
Stacey glanced over her shoulder at Katrina, who had somehow reduced herself to half her size, hunching her shoulders and sliding down in her seat.
“Fine.” Stacey was grinning when she looked at me again. “You’re so funny!” Then she ruffled my hair—reached out like it was nothing, sank her fingers in there, and tousled it. No one had ever ruffled my hair before. Not even my mom. As she turned and flounced toward her 90-percent-success-rate seat, I faced forward and glowered, running both hands forward over my head. I was too humiliated to look at Katrina, who now probably thought Stacey and I were soul mates or something.
I glanced over at the chair True had taken yesterday. It was empty. Still sleeping it off, apparently.
“Good afternoon, everyone!” Mrs. Roberge walked in, wearing a blue dress with white swirls. She divided the books into five separate piles and dumped the piles on the front desk of each row. “Take one and pass them back. This is Great Expectations, one of the finest novels ever written in the English language, and it will be our first book of the year. I’m throwing you into the lion’s den straight out of the gate, if you’ll forgive my mixed metaphor.”
The kid in front of me handed me two books, and I passed the last one back. Mine was dog-eared, the pages browning around the edges. Someone had written notes in the margins. Good. That could be helpful. If the kid before me had been smart.
“Each one of you will be assigned a chapter and will lead the class in the discussion of that chapter,” Mrs. Roberge announced.
The class groaned. Next to me, Katrina froze. Like, froze solid. For a second I thought she was going to faint, and I imagined what I would do if she fell in my direction.
“Tonight you’ll read the first three chapters, and tomorrow I will assign those chapters to three lucky members of this class,” Mrs. Roberge continued, her eyes sliding over the classroom mischievously, like she knew exactly how sick she was making us feel and she was loving it. “So be ready! For now, let’s talk about the author, Mr. Charles Dickens.”
She turned to the board, and I leaned into the aisle to whisper to Katrina. I wanted to see if she was okay. If there was anything she needed. But the second I moved, Stacey turned around and waved at me.
I had to figure out a way to break up with this girl. But how the hell do you break up with someone you’ve never even asked out?
The guy at the back of the room got up to bring an extra book to the front of the class. Mrs. Roberge frowned at True’s empty desk.
“Anyone know where Miss Olympia is today?” she asked.
Katrina and I exchanged a look. Neither of us said a thing. But I suddenly realized who was going to help me figure out what to do about Stacey. True. The person who’d forced Stacey into my life. I could only hope she’d be sober enough to make sense.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
True
I lounged in my stark-white, high-ceilinged parlor room with Harmonia and our friends Selene and Nike, eating grapes alongside my Earthen window. The window was a huge round opening in the floor of my chambers, through which I could see any point on Earth in the blink of an eye. At the moment I was focused on the Grecian court, and had just matched a jilted lover with a mourning widow when Artemis appeared near the fire.
“Artemis!” Selene cried, jumping up to hug our unexpected visitor. “You’re back!”
Selene, the moon goddess, was sweet and kind, but could also be a bit of a dimwit. She always saw the best in everyone and never seemed to notice when danger was at hand, as it clearly was now. It had been months since we’d seen Artemis, but rumor had it that she’d spent her time on Mount Etna, an awful place where the Cyclopes roamed, volcanoes and earthquakes erupted without warning, and forests burned. I myself had never visited, but occasionally gods and goddesses took refuge in its dank caves and underground villages to avoid the wrath of Zeus. He didn’t like to acknowledge Etna. Considered it beneath his notice. But he would pursue his enemies there from time to time, if his anger was great.
As she appeared before us now, Artemis was dressed for battle in a freshly forged breastplate, leather skins, and a fur cape. Her once peachy complexion had gone ruddy and brown, and her face and arms were streaked with black soot. She didn’t move to return my friend’s embrace. She simply stared at me over Selene’s creamy-white shoulder. Nike, quick as a whip, rose to her feet and squared her shoulders.
“What is it?” I asked, clutching my bow as I stood. “What’s wrong?”
“You,” she growled. “You did this to me!”
Artemis advanced on me so swiftly I didn’t have time to draw my bow. She reached out and latched her fingers around my throat, squeezing her thumbs into my airway.
“Artemis, no!” Harmonia cried. She lifted her hands to repel Artemis, but Artemis threw Harmonia against the wall with a mere blink. This was a power I’d only seen upper gods and goddesses use. The younger generation had to use our hands when battling other deities.
Nike froze in place and gaped. “How did you—”
“I learned a few things on Etna,” Artemis said with a sneer, looking directly into my eyes with a strength of purpose I’d never seen on anyone, god or mortal. She was going to extinguish me, right here, right now. “Like how to crush another goddess’s windpipe.”
I couldn’t breathe. Panic seized my gut, like nothing I’d ever felt before. I was supposed to be immortal. This was not supposed to happen to me.
“It wasn’t Eros who tricked you into killing Orion!” Harmonia protested, scrambling to her feet. “It was Apollo.”
“But she tricked me into falling in love with him!” Artemis shot back. My vision began to prickle around the edges. Nike’s smooth dark skin went gray and hazy over Artemis’s shoulder. “With a mortal!”
“But love him you did!” Selene said, gripping Artemis by the shoulder. “And you were happy. If not for Eros, you never would have been so happy!”
“And I never would have been this miserable!” Artemis replied through her teeth. They had gone brown in her absence. Or was that a trick of my mind as it slowly shut down?
Suddenly every door to every one of my many terraces slammed. The fire was extinguished. The candles were snuffed. The room went dark. And my mother, Aphrodite, appeared behind Artemis. She shoved her forearm into Artemis’s back, grabbed her heart in her fist, and twisted. Artemis’s jaw hung slack. Her hands went limp and she released me. I fell to the ground in a heap at her feet as my mother lifted Artemis over my head by her heart.
“Mother, please!” Harmonia cried. “Don’t do this! Artemis is suffering. It was not her fault.”
Aphrodite pulled her hand out, leaving the heart in the body cavity where it belonged, and let Artemis drop. Her body hit the marble floor with a sickening crack. I pushed myself up to my knees, coughing and sputtering and heaving for breath. Slowly the world around me curled into focus. Artemis rolled over to her back with a groan.
“You think you can threaten my daughter?” Aphrodite raged, advancing on her prone body. “You think I won’t tear you into a hundred tiny pieces and scatter your putrid remains to the far reaches of the underworld?”
Artemis gasped for breath. “I don’t care what happens to me. I no longer wish to exist.”
Aphrodite narrowed her eyes at Artemis, then looked around at the rest of us.
“Your generation baffles me,” she said. “He was one love. One measly, sniveling mortal. They are born and wither like grapes on a vine.” She gestured at the heaping bowls of fruit around my Earthen window, then crouched down next to Artemis. “You will go on existing and you will love again,” she said. “But if you touch my daughters or my sons or anyone else I care for, I will turn you over to Hades and your soul will burn for all eternity in the most blistering fires of the underworld. Do we understand each other?”
Artemis’s eyes were wide with terror. “We do.”
“Then go.”
Aphrodite stood, and before sh
e had even turned around, Artemis had whirled from the room. My mother reached out an arm to me. I clasped it, and she pulled me to my feet.
“It’s a dangerous occupation, this,” she said, glancing at my golden arrows.
“To be sure,” I rasped.
It was a ritual of ours. Something we recited to each other whenever the business of love grew difficult, worrisome, violent. She enveloped me into a lilac-scented hug, and before I could even properly thank her, she was gone.
• • •
I woke up with a gasp, a crazy beat pounding inside my brain, but this time it wasn’t my own head making the noise. It was coming from somewhere outside. As the last wisps of my memory faded away, I cautiously opened my eyes. I lay in a darkened room filled with discarded musical instruments and haphazardly arranged furniture. An itchy, but warm blue jacket covered my torso, and set on the floor next to me was a full bottle of water with a handwritten sign propped next to it.
DRINK ME
I sat up and clucked my tongue. It felt like a freshly skinned animal pelt. I grabbed the bottle and chugged most of it down. Nothing had ever been so refreshing. I turned toward the door. There was a package of small doughnuts a couple of feet away with another sign.
EAT ME
My stomach grumbled, then turned. I ripped open the package and bit into the first powered doughnuts. Then I sipped the water. It seemed to help my stomach. After I’d downed three more doughnuts, I felt able to stand. I slid my arms into the slippery vinyl-lined sleeves of the jacket and cautiously stepped out into the light.
In the corner of a large room, Charlie was beating on a set of drums with maniacal precision. His eyes were closed and he kept the beat with his chin, occasionally shaking his head as he really felt the rhythm. He was unbelievable. He was handsome. He was even sexy. The boy was in his element.
“Hello!” I shouted.
He stopped drumming and blinked, as if shaken out of a trance. His face lit up with a smile. “Hey! You’re up!”
“Yes,” I said. “What time is it?”